


Balanced Beginnings

by Elisabeth



Series: The Recluse [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Acrobatics, BAMF Peter Parker, Gen, Identity Reveal, Meditation, Mentor Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Peter Parker is Trying His Best, Sensory Overload, Spidey Squad, Training Montage, Yoga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25137925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisabeth/pseuds/Elisabeth
Summary: Peter’s evolution as the number one spider bite recipient of the decade is a bit different with a slight shift to the left. He starts out as a 14-year-old who has just been through a traumatic spider bite, and everything is kind of terrible. This is how he starts to figure out his new spider half and grows along the way. May is doing what she can to help, but it’s hard when she has no idea what’s actually going on.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov
Series: The Recluse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820914
Comments: 5
Kudos: 92





	Balanced Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I have a pretty firm idea for the kind of universe this story arc is going to be set in. I'm going to post at least a few installations that I already have written, and there are more planned. Each work will be a short(ish) story set in this unified verse. The plan is to going from a very baby version of Peter Parker to a much more mature one, spanning the time through the bitten, college, and post-graduation. I hope you enjoy!

_ May 2016, Parker Apartment _

All senses dialed to eleven is not a fun way to live. Peter, age 14 and bitten by a radioactive spider two weeks ago, was not having fun at all. The only,  _ only, _ good thing about the accident was that nobody had noticed it happen and it was on the second to last day of freshman year so that he wouldn’t miss any tests. He didn’t have to make school excuses, he didn’t have to sit in overly-loud classrooms, and he didn’t have to talk to anyone but May.

Instead of being stuck in class, Peter was lying on the floor, eyes covered, earplugs in, and a fan on his face, trying to stop hearing the heartbeat of the two neighbors next door. He was trying to stop feeling the vibrations of three upstairs neighbors walking in two apartments across the hall, trying not to smell what the entire floor had eaten for breakfast. He wasn’t particularly successful, but it was better than it had been the hour before. 

His hearing tuned back in to listen to the neighbors, like an old radio with a faulty dial, warbling in and out of the station. He could hear that their hearts were both elevated, and Peter didn’t want to think too hard about what they were doing. 

“Totally jumping jacks,” he whispered and then sighed because he wasn’t even able to lie to himself. He dropped another ice cube into his mouth. There were footsteps in the hall and then a key starting to turn in the lock, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to move, even if he knew how crazy he looked.

“Peter,” May called as she stepped into the apartment and flipped on the lights. May couldn’t read his body language well enough to tell exactly what was going on in his head, but Peter supposed she could guess close enough.

“Honey, are you ok?”

“No,” he warbled from under the pile, “everything is too loud and too bright, and my skin hurts, and I didn’t know what else to do.” Peter was sure the blanket muffled him as it was sitting over his face, but he wasn’t going to move. Even the gentle rasp of cloth on his skin was too much right now. May took a few steps closer to him and ended up sitting on the couch, within a few feet but not touching. It wasn’t the first episode he’d had, but this one seemed like it had been going on longer. May quietly took in his huddled form and sighed. They had already been in and out of the doctor’s office because of the nasty fever he’d had the week before, and their next check-up wasn’t scheduled for two more days.

“Do you want me to push your doctor’s appointment up to tomorrow? I can do that.”  
“No! Ugh May, please no. It’s already getting better. We’ve been there once every three days. I will literally start climbing walls if we go back tomorrow.” 

A strangled laugh ripped itself out of Peter’s chest against his will. May thought he was exaggerating, but literal was actually  _ literal  _ in this case. He’d accidentally climbed his bedroom wall the other day, trying to jump up and swat a fly. The shock of actually climbing up the wall had sent him into his second episode four days ago.

“Ok Honey, no doctor yet. We’ll leave the scheduled appointment on Friday. I’m just going to put on the meditation music and you’re going to be very, very good at breathing with me.”

Peter nodded and hoped that she could see him. It was always a bit better with May here because he could focus on one thing with a lot of characteristics. Right now, she smelled like soap, laundry detergent, copier toner, and gasoline. Peter assumed he shouldn’t be able to tell that she’s gotten gas on her way home, but it was kind of nice to know. May spoke again,

“How about you come with me to meditation and yoga tomorrow if you feel up to it? My classes start at 6 am and the studio aura is very positive. Maybe it could help get whatever this is under control. It could be perfect for you.”

Peter did not particularly  _ want  _ to go, but he found himself nodding anyway. Meditation at home with May did actually seem to be helping, and he’d take any help he could get right now. His senses going haywire was terrible, and he’d do just about anything to get them back to normal.

* * *

_ Two weeks later _

Peter would absolutely never admit it to his fellow high-schoolers, but he really enjoyed the yoga classes. May’s early-morning group was amazing. There were five women who seemed to be CUNY students, and they always lined up in the front row of class to talk to the instructor. Peter was a little bit in love. May shook her head every time she caught him sneaking peeks and would poke him, laughing at him the whole time. 

Before the first class, she had cautioned him that yoga was much harder than many people thought and that he should just do the best he could and not worry about it too much, but he’d had no trouble at all falling into the new routine with her. If anything, it was suspiciously easy. The instructor, a sturdy young man named Roque, was delighted to have another male in the class. He was also painfully excited that Peter was talented at this, and had done a lot to get him up to speed with the rest of the class after he realized that Peter was unexpectedly strong and flexible.

“You’re absolutely sure you’ve never done this before?” May whispered at him as they were holding Sirsa Padasana, bodies curled upside-down into a C-shape, braced on their forearms with feet kicked overhead in a backbend. “I only ask because my first two weeks of yoga were fun but I looked like an absolute fool. This is entirely unfair and you’re a scamp. I can’t believe you’re as good as me at this. I’ve been doing this for ten years, you horrible child.” Peter just grinned at her.

“May,” He whispered back, “I feel like you would know if I had secretly been taking yoga classes. We did a lot of sit-ups in gym class last year, and Coach Wilson is kind of a slave driver. Yoga is all new to me, but it’s nice.” It was  _ really _ nice. Beyond nice. Whatever weird changes had happened after the bite, it seemed that his body really liked whatever yoga was doing. He doubted that he would have been able to do this pre-bite, but in the past two weeks a surprising set of abs had shown up, along with a ton of new muscles that he was now apparently supposed to keep in shape.  _ Apparently  _ he now had an eight-pack and eerie strength to go with his wall-walking.  _ Weird but awesome. _

“Mayurasana time, lovelies,” came Roque’s unnaturally excited yet still somehow calming voice from the front of the room. Quiet groans echoed around the studio as everyone prepared themselves for abdominal torture.

“Now, we’ll start in a lotus position, padmasana, and slowly lean forward” he began gently while slowly lowering himself down, and Peter stopped whispering with May and started to focus carefully on his breathing. He had nearly managed to sort his balance out yesterday for Mayurasana and was very hopeful about getting it just right today.

Peter dropped into the rhythmic breathing and focused his senses. He focused smell onto his mat, looking for the lemon disinfectant that May always made sure to spray them with. His vision focused down on the cool, squishy lavender material that the mat was made of. Hearing he tunneled into Roque. Roque had a soothing voice, and there was the soothing background music to accompany it. He could feel every scratch of fabric, foam, and air across his skin but he let the awareness of everything slowly fall away one sense at a time until it was just his sense of balance left, and the core muscles straining to keep perfectly still. He could still vaguely hear talking and music in the background, his voice a meditational chant.

“Lean forward and slowly put your hands down with your fingers facing your knees. Tilt your body forward again, and slowly stretch your legs out. Shift your balance, shift to your hands, shift your elbows to your hips. Tilt again,” 

Slowly, Peter felt it all fall into place as he hit a stride in his breathing, like slotting the last brick into a 4,016 piece lego set. It felt right, and it loosened a knot in his chest that he hadn’t realized was sitting tight in the middle of his sternum for the last month. He stretched his legs out behind him and felt himself balance himself just on his hands. Peter thought it should probably be difficult because everyone around him was struggling, but this felt more natural to him than breathing. He held himself still as a statue for ten more seconds before a startled inhalation from May made him lose his concentration. Peter slowly tipped face-first onto the mat, much to May’s delight.

“I hate you so much right now,” May griped beside him while giggling. “How on earth are you so good at this?”

“It’s just really cool physics, May,” Peter protested as he smiled over at her with delight. “You have to find your body’s center of mass and then brace it with your elbows.”

“Yeah, and have freakishly good abdominal muscles,” came Roque’s voice from the front of the room. “Peter, that was excellent. You’ve made some intense improvements. Do you think you can get back and hold it for a bit longer?”

“Yeah,” he breathed happily and kicked his legs back up. The college girls in the front row were the ones sneaking peeks now and Peter couldn’t help but show off a bit. May just huffed beside him.

Roque pulled him aside after class, and said, “Peter, I’ll talk to your aunt about this later, but would you want to learn how to do acrobatic yoga?” Peter just blinked at him and shrugged. 

“I don’t know anything about it,” he told him, but Roque just laughed.

“I teach a class once a week on Saturdays up in Astoria and we always need base partners who can hold up the flyers. We get some unmatched people every class, but the majority of the solos are women. It can get a bit odd rotating people in and out of partners so I offer the class free to any bases that I can find.” Peter stared at him for a second before saying,

“You realize I’ve barely done any real yoga at all, right?” The man raised a skeptical eyebrow back at him and then looked out at the rest of the class.

“You say that, but if you haven’t done something similar like gymnastics or sports then you’re some kind of freak of nature. Just don’t tell your partners you have zero experience until after the class is over. Seriously, if I wasn’t sure about this then I wouldn’t ask.” Peter’s ears were starting to turn red, but he didn’t deny his interest.

“You held that last set steady as a rock, which a lot of instructors can’t even do. If May says yes, I can hold you and your aunt after class tomorrow to give it a trial run and see if it’s something you want and we can go over some of the basics. I’ll bring my teaching partner.” 

“Let me go check-in,” Peter said as he backed away to talk to May. He jogged over to where May was wiping down and rolling the mats.

“May, did you hear?”

“Yes, Peter. If it’s something you want to do then I’m all in. This seems like it’s helped you a lot so I’m all for pushing it to the max.”

He just flung his arms around her and sent a thumbs up across the room.

“No, we’re sweaty, this is gross,” May complained as she jokingly tried to peel him off, “Peter, ewww. Stop it!”

* * *

_ Five months later - October 2016 _

Peter made it home from his scavenging session later than he’d planned, close to 4 pm. It was Tuesday, so May had a 6 pm deadline for when Pete had to make it back and start on homework. As he got in the door, he registered May and one of her friends sitting on the couch talking as he wandered into the kitchen. 

“May, there is the coolest motorcycle  _ ever  _ out front, you would not even believe,” he says, as he swings around the corner and takes a look at who is actually in the house.

“Allie?” he asks, totally baffled, “what are you doing here?” He stared in confusion as his semi-regular acrobatics partner smiled up at him from the couch. She looked… different, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. The blonde ponytail, make-up, and clothing were exactly what he would expect from any training day.

“I was actually talking to May about the pair of us getting scouted.” 

“Scouted?” Peter was still staring at her, trying to make his words work when suddenly her posture shifted minutely and his spidey-sense went haywire. “How do you mean?”

“Well, two weeks ago, when we were in practice at the studio,” she started, and he cocked his head at her because she had not actually been at acrobatics two weeks ago. She sent him a wink out of May’s eyesight, and Peter officially had no idea what was going on. “A man approached Roque about hiring him and Jenn to do a temporary set of performances at the Big Apple Circus, over in the Bronx, this weekend, as a workshop for the Boys and Girls Club.” May looked so excited about this that Peter didn’t want to burst her bubble, but he did not actually recall anyone talking to Roque two Saturdays ago. “Roque accepted, but they needed two pairs so he pointed the two of us out. They came back the next week and talked to us about making it happen. We held back on saying anything until we had a face to face with May, so we wouldn’t get your hopes up if she wasn’t OK with it.”

Allie flipped her hair and fiddled with a sleeve and he stared at her again, trying to figure out why she was so familiar. 

“I hashed out all the details with May if you want to say yes, and I have a copy of the routine they want us to work on for a bit here on this flash drive. I was hoping you’d take a look at it before saying yes or no.” She smiled sunnily up at him. He vaguely waved his new (scavenged) DVD player at her and motioned at her to come look at his computer.

“Oh honey,” May called behind him, “isn’t this the most exciting? When you’re a famous performer, you’ll have to name me as your sole inspiration.” Peter sighed aggressively at her as he was walking to his room and said, 

“Yes, May. Of Course, May. I love you the most, May.” He slipped by the couch, giving May a kiss on the cheek before he stepped into his room and looked at Allie again. Somehow he barely even recognized her even though nothing obvious had changed.

“Holy shazam, you’re the Black Widow,” he whisper-shouted at her. Her eyebrows climbed upwards, but she smiled at him. She was totally laughing at his shock on the inside, he could feel it. That was rude. “How is my acro buddy the Black Widow? You’re an Avenger! You don’t need to take classes. I’ve seen you do way crazier things on the news! That’s totally your motorcycle out front, isn’t it? That’s so cool. I saw you ride it on the news after that explosion in DC! It was so cool!”  _ Peter, shut up _ , he mentally screamed at himself.  _ This hurts us _ .

“Well, I’m  _ a _ Black Widow,” she said quietly after walking across the room and leaning against his window, “and you’re the baby spiderling that’s been running around Queens webbing up felons, aren’t you? We had a hell of a time tracking you down, but Stark was like a dog with a bone once he got his hands on that webbing you use.”

“Uhh, you totally must have the wrong address,” he said nervously, eyes darting immediately to where his suit was hidden in the ceiling along with three vials of the webbing. She followed his gaze upwards to the attic trap door and then dropped her eyes back down to him and stared a bit longer.

“Also, nobody even knows what the spider looks like.” Her eyebrows stayed raised, and Peter cursed whatever gene it was that made him unable to stop talking.

“I’ve seen the newspaper reports about the incidents, they think it’s some new vigilante, but nobody’s gotten them on camera yet.” She outright smirked at that.

“That last one is incorrect, actually.” She interrupted his verbal diarrhea and pulled her phone out to call up a video. “It’s not that  _ nobody _ has gotten a video, just that nobody in the  _ news _ has gotten a video yet. We’ve been keeping a close eye on anyone who pops up on the radar looking like they may have powers. The Sokovia Accords are not just a piece of paper with writing on it.” She turned the phone screen to face him.

Yep, Peter sighed mentally as he stared at the video, that was definitely him in black yoga pants he stole from May, a black hoodie, and a black breathing mask with goggles. He frowned again at his red and blue shoes and gloves, he was on a budget, sue him. He was still hopeful that she would back off, but it was a quickly fading hope. On camera, webs shot from his wrists and pinned the purse-snatcher to the wall.

“I thought the accords were for enhanced people only. I designed the webs myself. Synthesized it all here. Just ingenuity.” She completely ignored what he was saying.

“Us spiders have to stick together, you know,” she said slowly, assessingly. “Hawkeye now has another bird-themed hero to keep him company, so I had to get someone else on my side for Team Spider.” She said it almost conversationally, but his senses were still screaming at him that he was on the brink of a dangerous precipice. “Stark wanted to come talk to you himself. He was very impressed by the web’s chemical composition, but he can be… abrupt. Too flashy for some situations.”

She pushed off the window and took a couple of graceful steps towards him, stopping directly under the attic trap door.

“I talked him out of it,” she continued, as she inched her way closer to Peter, looking more like a big cat than her namesake spider. Her head cocked to the side and her lips pursed a little as she watched him. It was unnerving. Peter just stared at her, unsure of how to respond. “I wanted to get a feel for you. You’re  _ too _ strong, you know. At acrobatics, especially when you’re lifting. Normal people will strain just a tiny bit, they’d have some shake in their arms, even if they’re very strong. It’s how I pegged you for it so fast, even before I tailed you one evening on patrol.” Her lips quirked up again into a half-smile. 

Yeah, Peter thought as he looked at her a while longer, she was almost painfully pretty but also could kill him with her thighs and was probably old enough to be his mother. His brain got stuck on the webbing part. “It was smart of you, keeping most of the enhancement to yourself. It’s not obvious at all on the videos we got, so you can pass yourself off as just a regular vigilante, not a dangerously superpowered one.” She took another step towards him, but Peter was mentally stuck thirty seconds ago. "I'm glad we don't have to talk about shoving the accords on you yet, give you a little breathing room."

“Can we rewind for a second,” miraculously, Peter was able to get out the words without any stammering so that was good. “Mr. Stark liked the webbing?”

“Oh yes, he said that the tensile strength was off the charts and that he was impressed by the… flexibility and stretch to strength ratio? He’s been playing with some samples we scraped off a wall in his labs for the last two weeks, so congrats on that.”

“Ohmygosh, really? That’s so cool! But like… why did you have to talk him out of coming down here? Why do any of you even care in the first place?”

“Well,” she sighed a bit, “I actually came to see if you wanted to go out on a mission with us. In Germany. This Saturday.”

“Um, Ms. Black Widow, thank you for the offer but I can’t actually go to Germany.” She blinked at him, nonplussed.

“Why not? It’s not like you’re going to need a passport or guardian to come with you, we’ll deposit you back here all snug and sound and May won’t be any wiser.”

“I have… homework. And school. And a Spanish test. I can’t just drop out of that.” Allie (no, not Allie, the Black Widow) just blinked slowly at him.

“I think I can make a plausible cover for you, Peter,” she said with a laugh, “We’re just going to tell your Aunt that we’re pulling you for the acrobatics, and it’ll all be neatly signed off. We can all go together, have a party. It’ll be fun. There is a real freelance position on offer at the circus, you know. I know a guy,” she said with a totally deadpan expression.

“Thursday night, workshop rehearsal, bring May so she sees it. Friday, first actual audience workshop and performance. The second we’re off stage I’m dragging your Spider-Kid self to Germany. I took this project of tailing you from Stark even though I was very skeptical of the concept, but now I’m actually mad over how fast you pick up physical learning. Most of us had to put blood, sweat, and tears into this, you know.”

Peter just blinked at her before saying,

“Sure, I’ll do it. Why not,” Peter shrugged at him, “What could go wrong.”

“Perfect. Now, actually watch this acrobatics routine. We have three days to learn it perfectly, and it’s gonna be a killer.” Peter, too overwhelmed to do anything else, watched the routine silently. The routine was beautiful. He glanced down at Allie’s ( _ not Allie, come on, brain)  _ wrists and saw an impression of her widow bites.

“Ms. Black Widow, ma’am, can I take a look at your bracers?”

“Don’t push your luck, kiddo,” she said with a short laugh. Peter just harrumphed at her. 

By Friday night, not that Nat would ever admit it, Peter had talked her into trading wrist decorations and they had taken each other’s gear out for a trial run. After a surreal two hours, Peter had promised to give her widow’s bites a small canister that would let her web people down, if she let him tinker with them a bit. She was very sad that her strength wasn’t enough to get the same oomph out of swinging along buildings that Peter’s was, but would take the upgrade. Peter didn’t even know what was happening with his life but it was  _ amazing. _

“I regret ever letting the two of you meet,” was all Mr. Stark would say on the subject, but Peter could see him laughing. They met very briefly on the ground in Germany, getting a fast rundown of the situation before heading in.

“Us spiders have to stick together, Mr. Stark,” Peter piped up entirely unhelpfully.

“Yeah, Stark. We have our own spidey squad going on here,” Natasha added, laughing at both of them. “Don’t be mean to the baby.”

“Woah, woah, woah. I’m not a baby!”  
“You’re fifteen!” Stark said as Natasha added on, “you’ve been doing this for four months. That’s no time at all spider-baby.”

Peter sighed as it became clear he was not going to win this fight.

“Whatever, I’m totally awesome,” he grumbled as he listened in on the upcoming plans.

Natasha just smiled at him and Iron-Man patted his head like he was a small, fluffy puppy before he took off in the suit to scout a lap of the airport with Colonel Rhodes. He was going on a mission with the Avengers. He met War Machine _. So Cool. _

Natasha just smiled to herself. Peter Parker had so, so, so much more potential than anyone else realized.

* * *

_ Two weeks post-airport _

Peter’s minor upgrade was  _ awesome _ . It was a beautiful dark burgundy color with navy blue and matte black accents and it had so many cool new features. Peter had managed to talk a bit with Mr. Stark before getting dumped back on Happy for the flight home but hadn’t talked to anyone else about the trip. Happy had seemed distant and vaguely annoyed at having to deal with Peter, but Peter was still so excited about the whole ordeal that he had totally disregarded Happy’s annoyance. Happy refused to drop the nickname Sticky-boy though, probably because he knew that Peter hated it.

After arriving back in New York, he’d been patrolling semi-regularly and showing up at the studio a bit less. The Black Widow had actually shown up to the first acrobatics practice the next Saturday and met him for a class, much to Peter’s surprise. It was in the Astoria studio, and there were definitely other people there for class. Natasha seamlessly merged back into Allie, her blonde hair and yoga pants ready to go, looking exactly like she belonged there.

“What are you doing here?” he’d hissed at her, eyes wide. “Aren’t you like... in hiding or something? What do you even want me to call you?” She cocked her head at him and actually laughed.

“Allie is fine. I don’t want to change my name here.”

“Cool, I can do that.” Peter paused for a minute, trying to organize his thoughts on the subject before just blurting them out, but he had a burning curiosity to satisfy.

“So, why did you let them go?” Peter almost facepalmed. He guesses he’ll go with the blurting out method. Since his brain couldn’t decide if it wanted to smile or frown, so he ended up making a scrunched up, constipated face.

“What makes you think I let them go?” she asked, cool as a cucumber.

“That’s what Happy said on the way back. He didn’t say much else other than that though. He wasn’t actually happy at all the whole flight home,” he added helpfully. Natasha didn’t say anything immediately. There weren’t any people in earshot, but she was quiet nonetheless.

“Happy and I go way back, and his opinion of me has never been… the highest.” Peter’s head tilted at her, and he resolved to get the story from Happy if it was possible, but she kept talking.

“There wasn’t any other good way to get out of a team fight without someone dying, because if Stark and I had refused the order to try and detain Barnes and Rhodes we would have been classed as outlaws along with them,” she continued, and her face was very serious. “However, if the depression duo had gotten actually arrested there, Barnes would have been taken into custody and his brainwashing would have been activated against us all and that fight would have been very, very bad. He would have been out for blood and then Rogers would have burned down the world to get him back.”

Peter stared at her for a few seconds to let that sink in, so she decided to elaborate a bit. 

“Stark and I decided to bring you because nobody was really in this fight to hurt anyone else, and you’re a enough of a heavy hitter to take any punches that did end up landing. You may be my size, but you’re enhanced enough to pack a hell of a punch. Anyway, I think that they’ve all sorted it out between themselves now.” A half-smile played at her lips. “Nobody in the UN is officially blaming me for letting them go, so while I am keeping a low profile, I’m not in hiding or officially wanted anywhere. Yet. No thanks to Ross, but he hates me anyway after the HYDRA info dump.” 

“Well, that’s good,” Peter said with a smile, “but why are you still coming to this practice?” Natasha laughed a little bit at him but smiled back.

“Believe it or not, this is actually a very good way for me to stay in shape. Especially the crazy routine we have for the cover.” Peter wasn’t sure he believed her, but he’d take it. The control needed to nail acrobatic stunts perfectly settled him down in a way that not much else could, post-bite.

“Well, do you want me to keep up with the demos? I do actually enjoy it, but I don’t want to force you into something every weekend.”

“You’re not forcing me into anything, mini-me. Besides, I’ve scouted a replacement for me if I ever can’t make it. It’ll be good for you to figure out how to work with multiple partners, especially on the big stunts.” Peter nodded. He’d gotten tossed around by Captain America ( _ Captain America!!!!)  _ in Germany, so he was going to take every piece of advice he could get his hands on.

Peter worked with her for twenty minutes before pulling up the courage to ask another question.“If I wanted to learn how to like… fight. Like, fight like you, is there somewhere I could do that? Captain America yanked me off my feet with my own webbing. That sucked a lot.”

Natasha started laughing at him and didn’t stop for a long time, but she was actually the best partner ever so he’d just deal with it.

“Have you ever done any fighting against someone as strong as you? I know a couple of people up in Harlem who can probably sort you out. Mostly. They’re used to dealing with strange stuff. Luke’s the one you want to talk to, he’s the most well-adjusted one of the lot.”

“ _ Ohmygosh _ , that would be the actual best,” Peter blurted out. He goes to hug her and  gets about a half-second before she puts him flat on his back on the mats.

“That was cool too. Can  _ you _ teach me? Do you have time?”

“Get up, Паук малыш. First, you learn to control your crazy strength when punching so you won’t kill any friendlies that don’t have powers. Then you can learn to fight from non-powered people. It’s the newbies that are dangerous. Give me your phone. I’ll put a couple of numbers in for you.”

“I can die happy,” Peter sighed happily into the floor. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it this far! I don't have a beta reader, so if you found any typos, then sorry. Kudos and comments give me life, and I hope you see you back soon! 
> 
> There's not really plot in this episode, but it's a good place to start as this is an explanation as to where my story splits off from cannon and why everything is a bit different. Think of it as the comic book #1 origin story in my epic serialization of Peter's life.
> 
> xx Lisa


End file.
